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Supporting the Nation’s “Most Wired and Connected” State

The employees of OFS recently reflected on our role in successfully deploying a massive network that makes Maryland the most “wired and connected” state in the nation.

In this project, nine Maryland governmental jurisdictions joined forces to form The One Maryland Inter-County Broadband Network (ICBN). ICBN then partnered with the State of Maryland to achieve the goal of providing affordable and accessible high-speed broadband access to community institutions, businesses and residents across the state.

During two years of intensive construction, OFS provided the majority of fiber optic cable for the project, delivering products needed by crews in the field while also manufacturing an optical pathway. For the network backbone, OFS delivered gel-free ribbon cable featuring AllWave® Zero Water Peak (ZWP) Fiber, which offers low loss over the full fiber spectrum. This cable helped to reduce splicing costs and will also help to enable faster restoration today and in the future. These capabilities gave ICBN the option of deploying Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM); low-cost, full-spectrum Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM); and the full array of next-generation transmission technologies for 100 Gb/s and beyond.

By successfully completing this project, ICBN became the first and only network to connect every county in a single state while under the ownership of state and local government. In addition, the ICBN consortium received the second largest Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP) grant for a network connecting more than 1,000 community anchor institutions across a 4,200 square mile area.

As a supplier to ICBN, OFS is committed to helping the most essential network components perform flawlessly over multiple generations of technology and applications. We congratulate ICBN for achieving their goal, and are dedicated to supporting ICBN and all of our customer networks.